Emerging Adults' Essentialism of Social Categories

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Social Cognition

Abstract

Children and adults sometimes essentialize social categories: they believe members of these categories share a hidden essence that determines their appearance and behaviors (Gelman, 2003; Rangel & Keller, 2011; Rhodes & Mandalaywala, 2017). Research on essentialism has largely focused on gender and race. Less is known about the extent to which children and adults essentialize other categories, such as ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES).
The present study investigated whether the extent to which ethnicity and SES are essentialized depends on one’s own social-group membership. Compared to White children of the same age, children from racial minority groups are more likely to view race as stable and conferred by birth (Mandalaywala et al, 2019; Roberts & Gelman, 2016). It thus seems plausible that the tendency to essentialize ethnicity might also differ across ethnic groups.
Similarly, essentialism of SES might depend on one’s socioeconomic background. Lower SES individuals might be more aware that SES is caused by external, structural factors, which could result in lower levels of essentialism (del Rio & Strasser, 2011; Kraus & Keltner, 2013). Indeed, a primary reason that first-generation students attend college is the belief that they can improve their status (Blackwell & Pinder, 2014; Craider, 2014). Yet once in college, first-generation students are frequently reminded of their differences from their peers and how hard it is to change their SES, which could then increase levels of essentialism (Wurster et al., 2017).
To test these possibilities, we examined essentialism in a population of emerging adults, many of whom were Latinx, from lower SES backgrounds, and/or the first in their family to attend college. Thus far, we have tested 176 participants (Table 1). A further 100 participants will be tested in the next 3 months. Participants completed a battery of tasks that included three scales designed to assess their levels of essentialism for gender, ethnicity, and SES (Rhodes & Gelman, 2009). For each scale, participants indicated their agreement with each item on a 7-point scale; higher scores indicate higher levels of essentialism.
Preliminary results indicate that participants exhibited significantly higher levels of essentialism for ethnicity than gender, t(175) = 5.05, p < .001, or SES, t(175) = 7.45, p < .001, and marginally higher levels of essentialism for gender than SES, t(175) = 1.96, p = .051. Results also revealed that Latinx participants had higher scores than non-Latinx participants on both the ethnicity scale, F(1, 167) = 4.75, p = .031, and the SES scale, F(1, 167) = 6.07, p = .015.
Our results suggest that, consistent with prior research on race, young adults from an ethnic minority group are more likely to essentialize ethnicity. The impact of participant ethnicity on their essentialism of SES could reflect the fact that a greater percentage of the Latinx participants were first-generation students. The challenge of changing one’s SES could be more apparent to these students, increasing their essentialism for this category. The relevance of these findings for academic motivation in this population will be discussed.

Authors

• Tonghui (Kailee) Zhu, University of California Merced
  Presenting Author

• Rose M Scott, University of California - Merced
  Non-Presenting Author